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SWISS issues iPads to its maîtres de cabine

4 June 2012

SWISS’s 650 maîtres de cabine are being provided with iPads to ease their overall workload. The devices, which will begin to be issued this month, will simplify the tasks and duties of the airline’s cabin services directors before, during and after the flight. They will also permit the abolition of the traditional printed manuals, with associated environmental benefits in both paper- and aircraft weight-saving terms.

The digitization of processes and procedures is now making inroads into the work of one of SWISS’s key personnel categories. Following a two-month trial involving some 30 such devices, SWISS’s entire corps of around 650 maîtres de cabine will now be issued with iPads for use in their work from the beginning of this month onwards.

At the heart of the programme is a new iPad app that has been specially developed by the carrier. The device and its app provide SWISS’s cabin services directors with a state-of-the-art worktool that is carefully tailored to their specific needs. The app gives the maître de cabine access to all the latest information on their flights and their destinations.

The new app features search, marking and comment functions to facilitate the reading and annotation of all the relevant manuals; and it also incorporates a special briefing function for preparing and conducting the briefings that are such a vital part of the pre-flight procedure. Later releases of the app will see further functions added that should prove useful on the passenger care and assistance front.

The adoption of the new iPads will also enable SWISS to abolish the printing of the extensive manuals which its maîtres de cabine currently use. This should not only make the maître de cabine’s baggage much lighter to carry; it will also benefit the environment, through the paper economies it allows and the weight reductions on board with the corresponding savings in fuel consumption and pollutant emissions.